arXiv subjects

Yong-Feng Huang

Publications and source records attributed to Yong-Feng Huang.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

The Observed Luminosity Correlations of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Their Applications

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most luminous electromagnetic transients in the universe, providing unique insights into extreme astrophysical processes and serving as promising probes for cosmology. Unlike Type Ia supernovae, which have a unified explosion mechanism, GRBs cannot directly act as standard candles for tracing cosmic evolution at high redshifts due to significant uncertainties in their underlying physical origins. Empirical correlations derived from statistical analyses involving various GRB parameters provide valuable information regarding their intrinsic properties. In this brief review, we describe various correlations among GRB parameters involving the prompt and afterglow phases, discussing possible theoretical interpretations behind them. The scarcity of low-redshift GRBs poses a major obstacle to the application of GRB empirical correlations in cosmology, referred to as the circularity problem. We present various efforts aiming at calibrating GRBs to address this challenge and leveraging established empirical correlations to constrain cosmological parameters. The pivotal role of GRB sample quality in advancing cosmological research is underscored. Some correlations that could potentially be utilized as redshift indicators are also introduced.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Intrinsic Pulse Widths of FRB 20121102A and Calculation of Broadening from Propagation and Instrumental Effects

The pulse widths of fast radio bursts are always broadened due to the scattering of the plasma medium through which the electromagnetic wave passes. The recorded pulse width will be further affected by the radio telescopes since the sampling time and the bandwidth cannot be infinitely small. In this study, we focus on the pulse widths of at least 3287 bursts detected from FRB 20121102A as of October 2023. Various effects such as the scattering broadening, the redshift-induced broadening and the instrumental broadening are examined. At a redshift of 0.193, the pulse width is broadened by a factor of approximately 0.16 due to cosmological time dilation. It is found that the instrumental broadening only contributes a fraction of $10^{-3}$ -- $10^{-1}$ to the observed pulse width. The scattering broadening is even smaller, which constitutes a tiny fraction of $10^{-5}$ -- $10^{-2}$ in the observed pulse width. After correcting for these broadenings, the intrinsic pulse width is derived for each burst. The maximum and minimum pulse widths at different frequencies are highlighted. The intrinsic widths of most bursts are in a narrow range of 1 -- 10 ms, which leads to a quasi-linear correlation between the fluence and the peak flux. Besides, the mean value and the dispersion range of intrinsic pulse width are found to scale with the central frequency as $ν^{-1.2 \pm 0.2}$ and $ν^{-1.7 \pm 0.6}$, respectively.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

A Thorough Search for Short Timescale Periodicity in Four Active Repeating Fast Radio Bursts

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients with millisecond durations which typically occur at extragalactic distances. The association of FRB 20200428 with the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154 strongly indicates that they could originate from neutron stars, which naturally leads to the expectation that periodicity connected with the spinning of magnetars should exist in the activities of repeating FRBs. However, previous studies have failed to find any signatures supporting such a conjecture. Here we perform a thorough search for short timescale periodicity in the four most active repeating sources, i.e. FRBs 20121102A, 20200120E, 20201124A, and 20220912A. Three different methods are employed, including the phase folding algorithm, the H-test and the Lomb-Scargle periodogram. For the three most active repeaters from which more than 1000 bursts have been detected, i.e. FRBs 20121102A, 20201124A, and 20220912A, more in-depth period searches are conducted by considering various burst properties such as the pulse width, peak flux, fluence, and the brightness temperature. No clear periodicity is found in a period range of 0.001--1000 s in all the efforts. Implications of such a null result on the theoretical models of FRBs are discussed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

The classification and formation rate of $\mathbf{Swift/BAT}$ gamma-ray bursts

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are usually classified into long/short categories according to their durations, but controversy still exists in this aspect. Here we re-examine the long/short classification of GRBs and further compare the cosmological distribution and evolution of each potential subclass. A large number of $Swift/BAT$ GRBs are analyzed in this study. The Gaussian mixture model is used to fit the duration distribution as well as the joint distribution of duration and hardness ratio, and the Akaike and Bayesian information criteria are adopted to assess the goodness of fit. It is found that three Gaussian components can better fit both the univariate and bivariate distributions, indicating that there are three subclasses in the $Swift/BAT$ GRBs, namely short, intermediate, and long subclasses. The non-parametric Efron-Petrosian and Lynden-Bell's $c^{-}$ methods are used to derive the luminosity function and formation rate from the truncated data of bursts with known redshift in each subclass. It is found that the luminosity distributions and birth rates of the three subclasses are different, further supporting the existence of the intermediate subclass in the $Swift/BAT$ GRBs.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Triggering the Untriggered: The First Einstein Probe-Detected Gamma-Ray Burst 240219A and Its Implications

The Einstein Probe (EP) achieved its first detection and localization of a bright X-ray flare, EP240219a, on 2024 February 19, during its commissioning phase. Subsequent targeted searches triggered by the EP240219a alert identified a faint, untriggered gamma-ray burst (GRB) in the archived data of Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM), Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), and Insight-HXMT/HE. The EP Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) light curve reveals a long duration of approximately 160 s with a slow decay, whereas the Fermi/GBM light curve shows a total duration of approximately 70 s. The peak in the Fermi/GBM light curve occurs slightly later with respect to the peak seen in the EP/WXT light curve. Our spectral analysis shows that a single cutoff power-law (PL) model effectively describes the joint EP/WXT--Fermi/GBM spectra in general, indicating coherent broad emission typical of GRBs. The model yielded a photon index of $\sim -1.70 \pm 0.05$ and a peak energy of $\sim 257 \pm 134$ keV. After detection of GRB 240219A, long-term observations identified several candidates in optical and radio wavelengths, none of which was confirmed as the afterglow counterpart during subsequent optical and near-infrared follow-ups. The analysis of GRB 240219A classifies it as an X-ray rich GRB (XRR) with a high peak energy, presenting both challenges and opportunities for studying the physical origins of X-ray flashes, XRRs, and classical GRBs. Furthermore, linking the cutoff PL component to nonthermal synchrotron radiation suggests that the burst is driven by a Poynting flux-dominated outflow.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Mass function of stellar black holes as revealed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observations

Ninety gravitational wave events have been detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network and are released in the Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog. Among these events, 83 cases are definitely binary black hole mergers since the masses of all the objects involved significantly exceed the upper limit of neutron stars. The black holes in these merger events naturally form two interesting samples, a pre-merger sample that includes all the black holes before the mergers and a post-merger sample that consists of the black holes generated during the merging processes. The former represents black holes that once existed in the Universe, while the latter represents newly born black holes. Here we present a statistical analysis on these two samples. The non-parametric $τ$ statistic method is adopted to correct for the observational selection effect. The Lynden-Bell's $C^{-}$ method is further applied to derive the mass distribution and density function of black holes. It is found that the mass distribution can be expressed as a broken power-law function. More interestingly, the power-law index in the high mass region is comparable for the two samples. The number density of black holes is found to depend on redshift as $ρ(z) \propto z^{-2.06}$ -- $z^{-2.12}$ based on the two samples. Implications of these findings on the origin of black holes are discussed.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2024

Partial disruption of a planet around a white dwarf: the effect of perturbation from the remnant planet on the accretion

About 25\% -50\% of white dwarfs (WDs) are found to be polluted by heavy elements. It has been argued that the pollution could be caused by the tidal disruption of an approaching planet around the WD, during which a large number of clumps would be produced and would finally fall onto the WD. The reason that the planet approaches the WD is usually believed to be due to gravitational perturbations from another distant planet or stellar companion. However, the dynamics of the perturbation and the detailed partial disruption process are still poorly understood. In this study, we present an in-depth investigation of these issues. A triple system composed of a WD, an inner orbit planet, and an outer orbit planet is considered. The inner plant would be partially disrupted periodically in the long-term evolution. Fragments generated in the process are affected by the gravitational perturbations from the remnant planet, facilitating their falling toward the WD. The mass loss rate of the inner planet depends on both its internal structure and also on the orbital configuration of the planetary system.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2024

Spin resolved momentum spectra for vacuum pair production via a generalized two level model

We have formulated a generalized two level model for studying the pair production in multidimensional time-dependent electric fields. It can provide momentum spectra with fully spin resolved components for all possible combined spin states of the particle and anti-particle simultaneously. Moreover, we have also investigated the validity of the two level model for fermions (scalar particles) by comparing the results with those by equal-time Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner (Feshbach-Villars-Heisenberg-Wigner) formalism in different regimes of pair creation, i.e., multiphoton and tunneling dominated mechanisms. It is found that the results are consistent with each other, indicating the good approximation of the two level model. In particular, in terms of the two level model, we found that the contribution of the particle momentum spectra is the greatest when the spin states of the particle and anti-particle are parallel with $S=1$. It is believed that by this two level model one can extend researches on pair production for more different background fields, such as a slowly varying spatial-temporal one. Many other interesting phenomena may also be revealed, including the spin-resolved vortex structure that is contained in the phase feature of the distribution function of the created pairs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Recent progresses in strange quark stars

According to the hypothesis that strange quark matter may be the true ground state of matter at extremely high densities, strange quark stars should be stable and could exist in the Universe. It is possible that pulsars may actually be strange stars, but not neutron stars. Here we present a short review on recent progresses in the field of strange quark stars. First, three popular phenomenological models widely used to describe strange quark matter are introduced, with special attention being paid on the corresponding equation of state in each model. Combining the equation of state with the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations, the inner structure and mass-radius relation can be obtained for the whole sequence of strange stars. Tidal deformability and oscillations (both radial and non-radial oscillations), which are sensitive to the composition and the equations of state, are then described. Hybrid stars as a special kind of quark stars are discussed. Several other interesting aspects of strange stars are also included. For example, strong gravitational wave emissions may be generated by strange stars through various mechanisms, which may help identify strange stars via observations. Especially, close-in strange quark planets with respect to their hosts may provide a unique test for the existence of strange quark objects. Fierce electromagnetic bursts could also be generated by strange stars. The energy may come from the phase transition of neutron stars to strange stars, or from the merger of binary strange stars. The collapse of the strange star crust can also release a huge amount of energy. It is shown that strange quark stars may be involved in short gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

On the dynamical evolution of the asteroid belt in a massive star-neutron star binary

Some fast radio bursts (FRBs) exhibit repetitive behaviors and their origins remain enigmatic. It has been argued that repeating FRBs could be produced by the interaction between a neutron star and an asteroid belt. Here we consider the systems in which an asteroid belt dwells around a massive star, while a neutron star, as a companion of the massive star, interacts with the belt through gravitational force. Various orbital configurations are assumed for the system. Direct N-body simulations are performed to investigate the dynamical evolution of the asteroids belt. It is found that a larger orbital eccentricity of the neutron star will destroy the belt more quickly, with a large number of asteroids being scattered out of the system. A low inclination not only suppresses the collisions but also inhibits the ejection rate at early stages. However, highly inclined systems may undergo strong oscillations, resulting in the Kozai--Lidov instabilities. Among the various configurations, a clear periodicity is observed in the collision events for the case with an orbital eccentricity of 0.7 and mutual inclination of $0^{\circ}$. It is found that such a periodicity can be sustained for at least 8 neutron star orbital periods, supporting this mechanism as a possible explanation for periodically repeating FRBs. Our studies also suggest that the active stage of these kinds of FRB sources should be limited, since the asteroid belt would finally be destroyed by the neutron star after multiple passages.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Probing Thermal Electrons in GRB Afterglows

Particle-in-cell simulations have unveiled that shock-accelerated electrons do not follow a pure power-law distribution, but have an additional low-energy "thermal" part, which owns a considerable portion of the total energy of electrons. Investigating the effects of these thermal electrons on gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows may provide valuable insights into the particle acceleration mechanisms. We solve the continuity equation of electrons in the energy space, from which multi-wavelength afterglows are derived by incorporating processes including synchrotron radiation, synchrotron self-absorption, synchrotron self-Compton scattering, and gamma-gamma annihilation. First, there is an underlying positive correlation between temporal and spectral indices due to the cooling of electrons. Moreover, thermal electrons would result in the simultaneous non-monotonic variation in both spectral and temporal indices at multi-wavelength, which could be individually recorded by the 2.5-meter Wide Field Survey Telescope and Vera Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The thermal electrons could also be diagnosed from afterglow spectra by synergy observation in the optical (with LSST) and X-ray bands (with the Microchannel X-ray Telescope on board the Space Variable Objects Monitor). Finally, we use Monte Carlo simulations to obtain the distribution of peak flux ratio ($R_{\rm X}$) between soft and hard X-rays, and of the time delay ($Δt$) between peak times of soft X-ray and optical light curves. The thermal electrons significantly raise the upper limits of both $R_{\rm X}$ and $Δt$. Thus the distribution of GRB afterglows with thermal electrons is more dispersive in the $R_{\rm X} - Δt$ plane.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Gravitational Wave Emission from Close-in Strange Quark Planets Around Strange Stars with Magnetic Interactions

According to the strange quark matter hypothesis, strange planets may exist, which are planetary mass objects composed of almost equal numbers of up, down and strange quarks. A strange planet can revolve around its host strange star in a very close-in orbit. When it finally merges with the host, strong gravitational wave emissions will be generated. Here the gravitational waveforms are derived for the merging process, taking into account the effects of the strange star's magnetic field on the dynamics. Effects of the inclination angle are also considered. Templates of the gravitational waveforms are derived. It is found that the magnetic interactions significantly speed up the merging process. Coalescence events of such strange planetary systems occurring in our Galaxy as well as in local galaxies can be effectively detected by current and future gravitational experiments, which may hopefully provide a new method to test the strange quark matter hypothesis and probe the magnetic field of compact stars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Tests of the Kerr Hypothesis with MAXI J1803-298 Using Different RELXILL_NK Flavors

Iron line spectroscopy has been one of the leading methods not only for measuring the spins of accreting black holes but also for testing fundamental physics. Basing on such a method, we present an analysis of a dataset observed simultaneously by NuSTAR and NICER for the black hole binary candidate MAXI J1803-298, which shows prominent relativistic reflection features. Various relxill_nk flavors are utilized to test the Kerr black hole hypothesis. The results obtained from our analysis provide stringent constraints on Johannsen deformation parameter $α_{13}$ with the highest precise to date, namely $α_{13}=0.023^{+0.071}_{-0.038}$ from relxillD_nk and $α_{13}=0.006^{+0.045}_{-0.022}$ from relxillion_nk respectively in 3-$σ$ credible lever, where Johannsen metric reduces to Kerr metric when $α_{13}$ vanishes. Furthermore, we investigate the best model-fit results using Akaike Information Criterion and assess its systematic uncertainties.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Repeating X-ray bursts: Interaction between a neutron star and clumps partially disrupted from a planet

Repeating X-ray bursts from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1806-20 have been observed with a period of 398 days. Similarly, periodic X-ray bursts from SGR 1935+2154 with a period of 238 days have also been observed. Here we argue that these X-ray bursts could be produced by the interaction of a neutron star (NS) with its planet in a highly elliptical orbit. The periastron of the planet is very close to the NS, so it would be partially disrupted by the tidal force every time it passes through the periastron. Major fragments generated in the process will fall onto the NS under the influence of gravitational perturbation. The collision of the in-falling fragments with the NS produces repeating X-ray bursts. The main features of the observed X-ray bursts, such as their energy, duration, periodicity, and activity window, can all be explained in our framework.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Repeating fast radio bursts produced by a strange star interacting with its planet in an eccentric orbit

FRB 180916 is an important repeating fast radio burst (FRB) source. Interestingly, the activity of FRB 180916 shows a well-regulated behavior, with a period of 16.35 days. The bursts are found to occur in a duty circle of about 5 days in each period. In this study, we suggest that the bursts of FRB 180916 are produced by a strange star interacting with its planet. The planet moves in a highly eccentric orbit around its compact host, with the periastron only slightly beyond the tidal disruption radius. As a result, the planet will be partially disrupted every time it passes through the periastron. The stripped material from the planet will be accreted by the strange star, falling to the polar cap region along the magnetic field lines and accumulated there. It will finally lead to a local collapse when the crust at the polar region is overloaded, triggering an FRB. The observed 16.35 day period corresponds to the orbital motion of the planet, and the 5 day duty circle is explained as the duration of the partial disruption near the periastron. The energy released in each local collapse event can be as high as $\sim 10^{42}~\rm {erg}$, which is large enough to account for typical FRBs even if the radiation efficiency is extremely low.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Strongly interacting matter in a sphere at nonzero magnetic field

We investigate the chiral phase transition within a sphere under a uniform background magnetic field. The Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model is employed and the MIT boundary condition is imposed for the spherical confinement. Using the wave expansion method, the diagonalizable Hamiltonian and energy spectrum are derived for the system. By solving the gap equation in the NJL model, the influence of magnetic field on quark matter in a sphere is studied. It is found that inverse magnetic catalysis occurs at small radii, while magnetic catalysis occurs at large radii. Additionally, both magnetic catalysis and inverse magnetic catalysis are observed at the intermediate radii ($R\approx4$ fm).

nucl-th↗

arXiv2023

A Comprehensive Analysis on Repeating Fast Radio Bursts

Nearly 700 fast radio burst (FRB) sources have been detected till now, among which 29 FRBs are found to burst out repeatedly. Although a firm connection between at least some FRBs and magnetars has been established, the trigger mechanism and radiation process in these enigma phenomena are still highly controversial. In this study, we build a sample of 16 repeating FRBs from which at least five bursts have been detected, including the most active four repeaters of FRBs 20121102A, 20180916B, 20190520B and 20201124A. Various key parameters of their bursts are collected from the literature, which include the arrival time, pulse width, dispersion measure (DM), Faraday rotation measure (RM), bandwidth, waiting time, peak flux and fluence. The distribution and time evolution of these parameters are investigated. Potential correlations between various parameter pairs are also extensively explored. The behaviors of different repeaters are then compared. It is found that the DM of FRB 20121102A seems to increase continuously on a long timescale. While the DM of most repeaters varies in a narrow range of $\pm 3$ cm$^{-3}$ pc, FRB 20190520B is found to have a large variation range of $\pm 12$ cm$^{-3}$ pc. RM evolves with time in a much more chaos behavior in different repeaters. A linear correlation is found between the absolute mean RM and $\rm {DM}_{Host}$, which may provide a method to estimate the redshift of FRBs. Generally, the waiting time shows a similar bimodal distribution for the active repeating sources. The implications of these features to the underlying physics are discussed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Redshift Dependence of the Low-energy Spectral Index of Gamma-Ray Bursts Revisited

A negative correlation was found to exist between the low-energy spectral index and the redshift of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) by Amati(2002). It was later confirmed by Geng(2013) and Gruber(2014), but the correlation was also found to be quite dispersive when the sample size was significantly expanded. In this study, we have established two even larger samples of gamma-ray bursts to further examine the correlation. One of our sample is consisted of 316 GRBs detected by the Swift satellite, and the other one is consisted of 80 GRBs detected by the Fermi satellite. It is found that there is no correlation between the two parameters for the Swift sample, but there does exist a weak negative correlation for the Fermi sample. The correlation becomes even more significant when the spectral index at the peak flux is considered. It is argued that the absence of the correlation in the Swift sample may be due to the fact that Swift has a very narrow energy response so that it could not measure the low-energy spectral index accurately enough. Further studies based on even larger GRB samples are solicited.

astro-ph.HE↗